I have a spare hard drive with a copy of XP already installed.?

Question

Can I use it via usb (in a suitable case)as an extra drive or will it conflict with my computer which has also got XP installed?

Answer 1

You can use the drive to store data on. Just be careful about deleting or overwriting any of the Windows files if you ever want to be able to boot from that drive.

Answer 2

Just buy a USB case from any good computer shop and install the hard drive into it. Boot your computer up and then plug the USB drive in, when it appears in my computer simply format it and you have all that extra space. Not only extra space but a back up drive as well. anything important on your main drive can be copied over to the USB drive in case of a problem on your main drive.

Answer 3

If you are planning on using it in an externale case as a usb drive it wont even recognize it till windows is loaded so it wont use the version of windows on that if it worries you just delete the windows folder on the external drive unless you are planning to install it in a machine at a later date.
Ps any programmes you have installed on the usb drive will still have to be installed to the computer so they can write the ini and reg files even if they are located on another drive.

Answer 4

its not as easy as just adding a hard drive with windows xp on,you have to have it as part of a boot ini. process
my advice is to add the drive to your p.c configured as a slave drive,you need to change the jumper settings on the back of the drive,then place it below the master drive,the master is your current drive
then if you are adding this to go with vista as a dual booted p.c you need to re-install both vista and xp
this m,ay seem a bit drastic but to run correctly you neeed to install the older o/s first(xp)on to c drive,then install vista on to your second drive (d drive)
vista will then take over the job as boot manager,and when you start up you will see a boot manager screen with a option to use 1)windows vista or 2)earlier version of windows(xp)
this way is probally the easiest way to dual boot a p.c and is the most stable
this method also works with all versions of windows(95,98,millenium,2000,xp,vista),the thing to remember is you allways install the older version first and start from the c drive and work your way up,so for example windows 98 and millenium,install 98 in c drive and millenium in d drive...easy!
using a usb drive(external) will give you problems such as having to change boot orders in bios,use a usb drive for storage by all means but not as a system drive,if you forget to switch the usb drive on or the usb plug falls out by accident then your p.c will crash causing serious problems
i hope this helps
good luck

Answer 5

Your computer will run on the OS of your boot device so it will not find the xp you have as an o/s just a load of files so no it will not unless you tell the bios to boot from it but i m not sure that possible

Answer 6

Fdisk ought to have difficulty with more advantageous drives, yet you ought to cope with to eliminate all partions in Fdisk at the same time as complicated , are there any NON Dos walls besides, take a seem in any respect of your logical drives. The domicile windows XP CD has the alternative to delete all the partions besides, and then create new ones consistent inclusive of your decision, i have finished 1000's of them.

Answer 7

I've heard of people installing Windows XP, but keeping Windows 98 on another section of their drive.

So I can't see it would be much different to that . . .
(but don't bank on it)

Answer 8

Hi Your machine will run on the OS of your boot device.